Using nothing more than
regular oil paint and a painstaking application of color, Kong Lingnan creates
a "neon effect" that givesmountains,
valleys, glaciers
and ice floes an eerie, otherworldly glow. But not even these distant, isolated
regions are immune to the depredations of human activity: everywhere we look,
we find tiny human figures engaged in building, fishing, spearing, drilling and
spilling, leaving behind the detritus of their tools and technology, seemingly
oblivious to their impact on the landscape around them.

Bathed in the neon
light of what the artist terms "false rainbows and manmade
illusions," these canvases reveal the bare bones of a much larger story:
that with everything we do, we are altering the contours of this planet,
chipping away at the only body she will ever have.

The appeal of Kong
Lingnan's work is the way it transports familiar settings, people and objects
into the realm of the dreamlike and unreal. Her attitude toward reality is
detached, dubious and pessimistic, subscribing to no preconceived values,
trusting in no pre-existing systems, and wary of overburdening her work with
social significance.

Only her body is not
confined to the human body per se, nor is it limited to the female viewpoint.
The artist channels the natural world or natural universe in the direction of
her own interests, and uses the female body as a metaphor for the planet or the
cosmos. It is a vast concept that will provide a solid foundation for Kong
Lingnan's future artwork.

The cold desolation and
baffling mystery of these paintings corroborate the artist's response to the
real world. Mountains, human figures and inanimate objects are depicted as glowing
outlines, creating a "neon effect." It is as if the artist were
sketching the human circulatory system; the body's veins, arteries, vessels and
meridians flowing, pulsing, pausing, stopping, drifting through the dark empty
silence like a child in a lonesome dream.